Wood Encyclopedia
Search and identify wood species from around the world — with origin, Janka hardness, grain and color, working properties, common uses, and how to tell them apart.
Swiss Stone Pine
Light, soft, aromatic Alpine softwood — the classic 'Zirbe' carving and paneling wood, pale cream to off-white with a lasting sweet resinous scent.
Softwood
Birch
A pale, fine-grained northern hardwood — cream to white with warm tones, strong and even-textured, and the backbone of quality birch plywood.
Hardwood
Eucalyptus
A huge Australian hardwood genus sold as "gum": this sample shows the warm golden-honey, fine straight grain with subtle ray fleck typical of the eucalypt oaks.
Hardwood
Sweet Birch
A dense, fine-grained eastern North American birch, famous for the wintergreen scent of its bark — pale sapwood over rich reddish heartwood.
Hardwood
Réunion Tamarin Acacia
Réunion's prized endemic mountain acacia — dark reddish-brown, often curly, and a close botanical twin of Hawaiian koa and Tasmanian blackwood.
Hardwood
Indian Sandalwood
The famed fragrant heartwood of Santalum album: fine, close, warm golden-brown wood prized for carving and aromatic oil, and now strictly protected.
Tropical & Exotic
Silky Oak
A light golden Australian hardwood with bold ray fleck and a lacy, silky figure on quartered faces — the classic 'silky oak' of colonial furniture and joinery.
Hardwood
Unknown Softwood
A pale cream to light-tan European softwood of undetermined species, showing straight grain, visible rays and radial surface checking — light, soft and easy to work.
Softwood
White Mangrove
A dense, hard mangrove hardwood of tropical tidal coasts — light tan to buff, small and gnarled, rarely milled and mostly used for posts, fuel, and charcoal.
Tropical & Exotic
Malabar Myrobalan
A dense, dark-brown Indian hardwood of the Terminalia group — the classic 'Indian Laurel' of cabinetwork, with golden tones and a moderate ribbon figure.
Tropical & Exotic
Mango Wood
A golden-brown tropical hardwood reclaimed from spent fruit orchards — light-tan with dark streaks, often figured, prized as a sustainable furniture wood.
Tropical & Exotic
Iroko
West Africa's durable golden-brown hardwood — often called African teak — prized for outdoor joinery, boatwork and worktops for its stability and decay resistance.
Tropical & Exotic
Xylia
A dense, very durable Southeast Asian ironwood, tan to pinkish-brown darkening to red-brown — the classic pyinkado of sleepers, bridges, and heavy construction.
Tropical & Exotic
Stone Pine
The pale, resinous Mediterranean softwood of the umbrella pine — clear concentric rings, straight grain, and light tan color, better known for its pine nuts than its timber.
Softwood